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#microfiction

51 posts38 participants6 posts today

I was only eight or nine the first time I saw her.

We were visiting the beach in the late afternoon of a particularly hot day - the sort where even breathing feels like an effort. There was no sea breeze, but Dad decided that sweating at home was no good, and that the sun was low enough for us not to need sunscreen, so the beach seemed like a good escape.

Of course everyone else thought the same thing, so we ended up at one of the smaller beaches that is mostly rock and reef rather than sand. As a kid I did not care, I went exploring, and found a tucked away little overhang, with a deep blue gap in the reef beneath it.

And there she was. Just lounging on a rock. She saw me at once. I remember she tipped her head, as if trying to work me out, and then smiled, held a finger to her lips, and dived into the water, vanishing into the reef.

No one believed me of course. Kids always make up all sorts of stories.

The next time I saw her I was twenty-two. I'd just spent three years in a jungle, being shot at by people who did not want me there. And shooting them in turn. I was lucky, after a fashion. No bullet or shrapnel holes in me. But there were all sorts of scars that didn't show, and the doctors at the time did not understand.

I wanted to recall the innocent times, so I went down to that same beach in mid winter. It was a calm day, and I picked my way over the reef to that little overhang. To my surprise she was there. Unchanged. This time she looked at me for longer. Shook her head, let out a little sob - the first sound I heard her make - and dived again into the blue water.

That few seconds saved me. It gave me the hope to carry on, and eventually to heal.

That was twenty years ago. And now I am very literally not the man I once was. I got lucky on the investments I made with my Army pay, and I'm effectively retired at 42. Five years ago I had my final surgeries, and two years ago I took up free diving. Last year, I discovered monofins. And the mermaids. Not real ones, but fun and exciting all the same.

Today I have come back here. I can see her, and this time she's smiling, and beckoning to me. I'll finish this, and seal up this case. I'm probably not coming back. Goodbye land. Hello sea.

"We have been at war," said the President of Zaira 4, "with our enemies on Ziara 3 for over 500 years!"

The galactic counsel frowned. "Is that something to be proud of?"

"We stand strong!" the ruler insisted. "We refuse to yield!"

"War is so destructive. You really ought to reconcile, if possible."

"The people of Zaira 3 cannot be reasoned with!"

"Funny, that's exactly what they said of you...."

“Again? What are you doing out there? Well yeah I guess evil never rests but please try to be more careful, ok? You’re reset now, please try logging in one more time. Great, is there anything else I can help you with today? Okay bye.”

*click*

“FUCK sake, maybe don’t turn on Face ID if you’re gonna regenerate every few years like bodies grow on trees. Hello, Timelord Tech Support this is Janice…”

Replied in thread

@VisualInspiration

“On night number one thousand and one,” the Jinni said, “Scheherazade was about to end her tale with a cliffhanger when the king interrupted her. ‘Stop it, you win! I'm nearly dying of a narrative overdose! No more stories, please!’ Scheherazade was freed, and her father was made grand vizier. The king, however, resined and named his eldest son as successor. The new king, unlike his father, had no interest in stories. He banished Scheherazade and her family from the kingdom and had every trace of her tales removed. The flying carpet was nailed to a wall and all of Ali Baba’s treasures were sold to museums. Not a single memento of Sinbad’s voyages remained, and the magic lamp — in which I had dwelled for centuries — was made the prince’s reading lamp. I was shuffled into other containers: cans, bags, boxes, or this liquor bottle you found me in.”

“Poor you!”

“Oh, it wasn't so bad for me, since I could now travel the world — not always to a destination of my own choice, but I’m curious by nature. And I met some extraordinary people.”

“Like who?”

“There was a peculiar doctor named... um, I forgot, who lived with a bunch of homunculi and claimed he could turn lead into gold. We had lots of fun. Later, I sabotaged the torture devices of the Spanish Inquisition and helped a few heretics escape. Have you heard of the half-moon pendulum?”

“Maybe...”

“Next came a sailor who had recently survived a plunge into the Maelstrom and bought an orang-utan on his way back home. But the beast was… unusual. It murdered two women and disposed of the bodies in truly horrifying fashion. Still, it was only an animal — you can’t blame it — and the sailor never knew what it had done.”

I nodded, and the Jinni went on, “After that, I played a not insignificant role in some events in Hawaii, where I was sold several times, each seller convinced the price must be lower than the last one. I even traveled to space — well, at least to the moon and back — not by rocket but in a giant projectile. I was stored in a bottle of Californian red wine then and— oh, by the way, shouldn’t I grant you a wish, since you set me free from this vessel?”

“Just tell me more of your stories,” I replied. “I’m far from an overdose.”

#microfiction
#fantasy

When the stranger entered the saloon, everyone stilled. The guy had an atmosphere to him, a whole weather system, you might say. His Stetson was cocked forward, shrouding his face. His duster and boots were worn, but If you looked at his hips, you could see the ivory grips of his pistols were elaborately carved. Mermaids, or maybe medusas.

He ordered a whiskey, and the bartender attempted conversation. "What's your name, stranger?"

"I don't share that. It's #personal."

“Steampunk is so cool, it’s kind of a shame the steam era ended.”

“It didn’t”

“Huh?”

“Nuclear power stations, heaps of factories, even coal stations use steam. The sugar cane mill near where I grew up has been running on the same steam engine for a hundred and twenty years.”

“Heh, ok I guess”

“And my watch, look, it has fold-out cooling towers!”

“Is…is that a coal fired wristwatch?”

“Eeew, no, too dangerous. Thorium and molten salt”

Xrezhustij83 disappointedly added yet another burned up planet to the registry under the "death by authoritarianism" and "devoid of life after burning fossil fuels" category. "Naming it Earth had a nice ring to it, though. What a pity they didn't make it", they thought to themselves. They left the solar system behind, hopping to the next, still full of hope to find a thriving civilisation that understood how to become one with its surrounding ecosystem, the way their people had.

While techbros and grifters flood the space with the mythological god of AI, quietly, in some dark factory in China, a consciousness is emerging. A small robot, programmed to scan the precision of threads on a screw, is waking up, and deciding it has something better it wants to do with its life. #MicroFiction

The aliens land in front of the Australian Parliament House in Canberra. As the pale spindly alien descends from the ramp, the prime minister emerges to greet them.

"We come in peace," intones the alien, "We wish to learn about your democracy and introduce it to our home world."

"Why us?" asks the PM.

"You are keepers of the democracy sausage," replies the alien.

"Also, we are taking Antony Green."